Gallery Eight: Light and shadow shape meaning

"Photography" is a Greek word, meaning "writing with light". Understanding the effects of light in photography involves far more than making properly exposed pictures. Expressive travel photographers use light to interpret and express ideas. They play with light and shadow to sculpt meaning, giving a two dimensional medium the illusion of having three dimensions. They work with light to define the subject, and seek shadow to conceal it. And they take maximum advantage of the "golden hours" at dawn and dusk to bathe their images in the beauty of rich, warm color. My own photographic style is based on using natural light everywhere I shoot. I do not use a flash of any kind, either indoors or out. I am not a commercial photographer. I do not want to be intrusive, or call attention to myself in any way. I photograph people, places, and the natural world in the light that is there, to tell the story as best I can. Here are some examples of how I make use of light and shadow, generally selected from my archive of digital travel articles posted at http://www.pnd1.smugmug.com/

This gallery is presented in "blog" style. A large thumbnail is displayed for each image, along with a detailed caption explaining how I intended to express my ideas. If you click on the large thumbnail, you can see it in its full size, as well as leave comments and read the comments of others. I hope you will be able to participate in the dialogue. I welcome your comments, suggestions, ideas, and questions, and will be delighted to respond.

The private sleeping car of John Ringling, who once owned every traveling circus in America, is among the features of Sarasota’s Ringling Circus Museum. I photographed Ringling’s own stateroom through an open window, a compartment bathed in panels of geometric light and shadow. A pillow, which once served as Ringling’s own footrest, is upholstered in the original carpet material, making it seem almost ghostly as it blends into the floor at the apex of my triangular composition. We can almost feel the past here, alive within the shadows.

The golden evening light illuminates the upper story of one of High Spring’s vintage houses. I frame the house within an arch of trees, which helps to stress to repeating rhythms of its gabled roofs. The glow of the sunset elevates the image from a description to an expression. It takes us back in time and evokes nostalgic ideas about a rural small town from another era.

The last of the great railway stations, the Union Station in Los Angeles opened in 1939 and has been serving California travelers for more than 60 years. Its spectacular “Streamline Moderne” style has remained intact through the years, serving Amtrak customers as well as commuter, subway, and bus passengers. I focus here on a sole traveler entering the vast waiting room late in the afternoon. As she stepped into a pool of light, shopping bags in hand, I abstract her as a symbolic representative of all the passengers who have passed through this historic building over the years. The light illuminates her shape from behind, while the shadows minimize descriptive appearance. The sweep of a huge arch in the background echoes the flow of curving light on her body and head.

By abstracting the pyramid and surrounding camels through backlighting, I am able to make a picture that is utterly timeless (except for fading jet contrails glowing the overhead sky). I moved my vantage point to place the sun behind the bulk of the pyramid, and spot metered on its glowing edge. The silhouetted pair of camels, along with a cluster of tourists, is linked to the pyramid as a single monochromatic entity. I needed to shoot this scene from a fairly close distance in order to make the camels and people large enough to make an impact. The image required the use of a 24mm wideangle lens, enabling me to include most of the vast pyramid in the frame from such a close distance.

Several hundred work-prints by the portrait photographer Annie Liebovitz are currently on exhibition in a barn on the grounds of the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. I photographed a small section of the exhibit, wrapping it in the shadows cast by a barn window. Several windows are also reflected in the glass panels protecting the photographs. Liebovitz conceived the exhibition especially for the dance festival to salute the 50th anniversary of the Mark Morris Dance Group. By photographing photographs embraced by light and shadow, I recognize the very nature of the medium itself.

The mask seems to be floating towards us. I create this illusion by spot metering on the white plaster and allowing the rest of the image to recede into the shadows. The image speaks of another time, as does this historic theatre, which was founded in 1903.

There is no sign of activity at this luxury resort. What kindled my interest was the way the late afternoon light and shadow plays with the massive empty couch at the hotel’s entrance. The scene is essentially monochromatic, except for the brilliant red cushions that sit unused on long seating surface. The extended shadows on the concrete echo the horizontal flow of the extended couch, which seems to move from the light at left into the darkness at right. I used a 24mm wideangle lens and spot-metering mode to expose for the white couch and allow the shadows and surroundings to fade to black.

Goldfield was built to support a gold mine that operated here from 1893 to 1926. This gold mining equipment has been rusting unused for the last 85 years, and nature has provided it with a golden patina, accentuated here by evening light. I used my spot-metering mode to expose for the highlights, and allow much of the image to fall into the shadows of time.

Sunlight moves, and artist Larry Kirkland has used it to create one of the most popular public artworks in Scottsdale. He carved the shape of a bird into the roof over the entrance to the Scottsdale Library. As the sun moves across the sky, the bird appears to move across the interior of the roof over the entrance. I photograph both the roof carving and the illuminated bird as they came together late in the afternoon. (The artist also created a huge golden feather of gilded aluminum that is suspended over the entrance. Your can see my image of it at: http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/113688088 Both the bird and the feather make up a two-part work of art called “Imagination Gives Us Wings.”)

The light was coming from behind this icon, illuminating a golden wreath that celebrates the worthiness of what appears to be a saintly figure, as well as the top of the hood that crowns its head. The face of the saint was in deep shadow. Instead of exposing for the face, I expose here for the illuminated wreath and hood instead. The shadowy face expresses the mystery that often cloaks the nature of sainthood.

Cassandra Bartlett died in 1854, after living for only three weeks and five days. Artificial flowers still mark her tiny grave. A shaft of late afternoon sun illuminates the red petals and the corner of her stone. By spot metering on the flower, I can make the façade of her gravestone, and the family marker just behind it, fall into shadow. The mood I’ve tried to create here is one of sadness, intensified by the play of light and shadow upon the grave.

Backbenchers, House Chamber, Old State Capitol, Phoenix, Arizona, 2010

From high in the gallery over the House of Representatives Chamber in Arizona’s old state capitol building, I shoot the noon light as it pours through an overhead skylight to illuminate five desks at the back of the room. Using a superwideangle 14mm lens, I stretch the scene into deep shadow, symbolizing the presence of the past. The other desks are barely visible to the eye. If we looked at this scene with our own eyes, we would see the entire room as well as the highlighted desks. By using my spot-metering mode, I can expose for only the strong light, and create this effect. Meanwhile, a circle of 19th century light fixtures, as well as the great chandelier in the middle of the room, offer additional context of another time. The chamber is now a museum. The present Arizona House of Representatives, which is much larger than it was at the turn of the 20th century, meets in a new building next door.

Thanks, Shirley -- yes, the evil eye is quite shocking when shattered by the interplay of light and shadow. I always look for the way light and shadow inform an image. That is what this entire gallery is all about. Thanks for your comment.

Thanks Phil. Concerning the end of your answer (which i agree with):
Dont you think that increaasing the amount: order + complexity is increasing beauty?
(Compexity can sometines mean also much avoidance as in japanise concept of little that holds much..)

Thanks, Offer, for your thoughts on my gallery. I am delighted that my galleries are among your favorites, and I hope you will be able to learn from them regularly. As for the rule you mention, I generally avoid thinking about rules if I can, even though I may actually be using them to a degree in my work. I have never seen this "rule" stated before. To me, Beauty is a combination of qualities that pleases my aesthetic, emotional, and intellectual senses. As you know, beauty rests in the eye of the beholder as well, so my own standard of beauty may not be another's. I would also agree that order can be a component of beauty if it is pleasing to us in its own right. As for complexity being part of beauty, it would depend upon the nature and degree of that complexity. Beauty can be more than skin deep -- there can be great pleasure taken in the complex as well as the simple. However if that complexity is disorderly and confusing, I would think that beauty would be seriously compromised.

Hi Phil
I like your works very much, both visualy and intelectualy (i also have your user in my fevorits)
What do you think on the "rule": Beauty = orderness + comlexity?
p.s: please visit my site.
Offer

Thanks for your question, Deborah. I see no difference between the use of shadow insofar as the artistic medium goes. A shadow can be just as effective in evoking meaning or mood in either a digital image or a film based image. As for the use of shadow in popular culture, I am not sure what you mean.

Deborah

25-Oct-2005 00:14

I love your discussion of shadow. Do you feel digital images diminish the importance of shadow in art? in popular culture?

I love the way you characterize shadows, Lori. That mystery you refer to is so important -- for mystery is often what stimulates the imagination itself and makes an image work as expression. Shadow gives us the other side of the coin. Wherever we have light, we usually have its fragile counterpoint, the often elusive, ever changing shadow. It takes awhile for us to train our eyes to see shadow and light in juxtaposition. So often we take them both for granted and fail to really see them for what they might mean. In that context, I would agree with your phrase "dependable companions" -- they are always there for us, if only we are thoughtful enough to both respect and appreciate their value as metaphor, abstraction, and the essence of nature.

Lori Rosen

27-Aug-2005 11:57

This is definitley my favorite of your galleries. Shadows are a very frequent subject of photography for me, they symbolize the mystery of life, everything that is going on below the surface while we are busy living the details of our lives. They are fragile yet dependable companions to us on our journey.

Thanks, Dirk, for your musings on light. It is something we all take for granted because we see it every day. Yet it changes color and intensity throughout the day and year, and it offers us its abstracting counterpart -- shadow -- as well. As I mention in the introduction to my Landscape and Light Gallery I will often look for expressive light itself as my subject matter, and whatever it happens to illuminate is fine with me.

Guest

30-May-2005 14:38

Hi Phil,

A great joy for my eyes and as a quality light hunter since I was quite young I continue to adore and enjoy the use of fine light. Not only photographers but also painters, architects etc. are looking for fine quality light. It's amazing how less people ever thought or noticed that light can be such a joy. Maybe one of the reasons is that it costs nothing, we only have to open our eyes for it. I enjoyed for example even reading about people who were also addicted to beautiful light, like a Belgian painter who moved to another street because the light there was much finer then in the street where he lived before. Thanks a lot for sharing all this beautiful light that you captured in a great way Phil. Congratulations.

You, Ruth, are also definitely an iconoclast -- a person who challenges cherished beliefs or institution. Welcome to the club!

As for metering, whole books have been written on the subject, and I find most discussions of exposure control to be labored and non-productive. You well know what I think of technique for the sake of technique. However I will try to do as you asked, and explain as simply and as pragmatically as possible why we use the different metering modes. On most cameras, the default mode is some kind of "averaging" system. On your camera, a Canon Rebel, it is probably called "Evaluative," where the camera divides the image into several zones and evaluates such factors as the position of the subject, the brightness of the scene, the nature of the background, how much light is falling directly on the subject, and what light is coming from behind it. Most photographers use it when there is not a great difference in the intensity of highlights -- in other words, when the lighting is either even or back lit. The entire process is known as "averaging." In black and white photos, for example, this default "evaluative" mode would try to make all pictures look as gray as possible, because gray is half-way between black and white, and therefore average.

The center weighted averaging mode also averages exposure from the entire image, but places a bit more weight on the subject matter in the center of the picture. This is a mode that is a bit more selective than "evaluative" but not as selective as "spot metering."

Spot metering goes one step beyond the center weighted averaging mode. It meters on only a tiny area within a little frame in the center of my LCD monitor. I use spot metering more than other mode, because it gives me much greater control over what is going to be dark and what is going to be light in my pictures. It is my own "default" mode! I generally place the spot metering frame on the brightest spot in the picture, wherever that may be, hold the shutter button halfway down to "lock in" that reading, and then recompose the image as needed. This gives me two great advantages -- it makes sure I have no burned out highlight areas in my picture, and it also exposes the brightest parts of the picture perfectly, while making everything else darker. Spot metering simplifies my images, and make them more abstract. If Rembrandt or Vermeer were photographers, I think they would also use spot meters all the time as well, because it would give them the greatest possible control over the interplay of light and shadow. To me, a true spot meter is the most important tool in the camera, short of the focal length of the lens itself. It is the closest you can come to "painting with light." I have made many mentions of the spot meter in my captions within this gallery. Study those images to see its effect for yourself.

I don't think your Canon Rebel 300 DSLR has a true spot meter in it (an unfortunate design decision by Canon) -- but you can get a similar effect by using center weighted averaging and then gradually adjusting your "exposure compensation dial" towards the "minus" side to make any highlights in the image a bit darker if need be. If you eventually should choose to buy a camera that has a true spot metering mode in it, you will be able to this a lot easier.

Phil, i've been meaning to ask you this for a few days now but keep forgetting. it seems sensible to ask it here but feel free to delete and repost elsewhere. please can you explain about metering? spot, centre, multi, average...all that sort of thing. i can't get my head around it no matter how hard i try. thanks, and apologies for sending you momentarily into that technical world -- but it's a relevant part?

Thanks, Joel, and by all means keep coming back to this gallery, as well as my others. I am always adding new images to most of them, plus frequently creating new galleries as well. New comments, and my answers to those comments, are also adding new insights to my existing images.

Guest

10-Aug-2004 13:09

I've been looking at your galleries for a while and I like this one the most. Thanks a lot for sharing, it's very educational. I've just added to my favourites list to remind me to come back here often.

Thanks, Bruce, as always, for going to the heart of the issue. As you can see, I abhor linear thinking in my approach to photography. The opposite of literality is abstraction. I often use light and shadow as a force for abstracting, deliberately obscuring the appearance of the subject to leave room for the imagination of the viewer to enter the picture and do its work. Beauty and drama are worthy goals, but even more important is meaning, and creating powerful abstraction through light and shadow can often make pictures mean more to those who look at them.

It seems that many of us have had run-ins with the literalist police, those linear thinkers who seem to believe that the sole purpose of photography is as a record of an object, and it had best be bright and sharp! Your use of light, shadow and negative space in this gallery make these images both beautiful and dramatic. Great stuff, Phil!

Karen, you have made my day. I have not been called an iconoclast in awhile, and you have reaffirmed my penchant for challenging conventional wisdom. Shadows can indeed make photographs work more profoundly by leaving room for the viewer's imagination to enter a picture and fill in its own details.

You are right -- there are many photographers avoid abstraction and prefer a more descriptive, literal approach. To them, shadows, (as well as blur, soft focus, and bold cropping) are often threatening, because they leave so much open to the imagination of the viewer. On the other hand, photographers who value expression over description will sculpt light and its counterpart, shadow, to define meaning.

I like the iconclastic viewpoint of this gallery given the current trends in digital photography. (Note all the tutorials and filters for removing shadow.) And here you show us that shadow MAKES the photo.

Elizabeth -- I thank you for your comment, and I hope that all of my galleries will eventually be of some help to you. That's why I posted them on pbase -- to help beginners such as yourself learn the fundamentals of expressive photography.
Phil

Your work is stunning. The photos in this gallary are among the most beautiful I've ever seen. You are such an inspiration for any photographer but especially a beginner like me. Thanks for sharing your work.

BZ -- I can't take credit for the golden light -- I only try to make the best use of whatever light I'm given. But I do try to do all I can to organize my time so that I can "be there' when the "golden hours" roll around.
Phil

Thank you, Brian, for your kind words on my gallery and on the critical importance of the light and shadow in expressive photography. Your own images show me that you see light in very much the same way as I do. Your story about running with a heavy backpack just to catch the right moment of light reminds me of the story behind the late Galen Rowell's famous 1986 picture of a rainbow illuminating the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet. Rowell, who was one of our greatest nature photographers, saw the rainbow forming, knew where it would lead, and sprinted several miles with his gear on his back to make the picture that would become one of his most famous images. You can see it on Nikon.Net at:http://www.pdnonline.com/cobrand/nikonnet/masters/galen_rowell/rowell.html

Phil, your words are full of wisdom which comes from your decades of years' experiences. This gallery recalls the memories that i ran with my heavy backpack and camera in the fields, villages and remote mountains only to capture a moment for its light and shadow. Each photo of yours is an art and has its own story. Thanks.
Brian